Chameleons and Newts
by Soubrettina
Summary: From the first time Eugene was kissed by Rapunzel until the day he teased her by stealing her tiara at a meet-and-greet, the incorrigible drifter has some trouble in believing his good luck. It's not easy starting a new life.
1. So where do we go from here?

Alive.

Alive, facing up to a pearly, iridescent sky, and that wasn't the only thing that was so much brighter than a few minutes ago.

Alive, and receiving kisses that it wasn't that he hadn't anticipated but hadn't worked out exactly how he was going to broach the subject again. And before long he gets round to participating, once he'd got over the surprise of the subject being thoroughly broached on his behalf (for if at first there was a little over-enthusiasm, she was quite happy to be shown how to put her efforts to best use for both of them.)

Alive, and yet a completely different life. For a start, it seemed that there was now a wife in it.

More kissing- her breathing has settled now- or at least, he can feel through her back that the spasm and flutter of tears has gone entirely, and the movement is deep, though it's getting faster. Unless that's him- if there's one thing he's aware of, apart from the sunlight and Rapunzel- and the taste and warmth of her and the sound of her sighing and the way she's gripping him like she might fall off the world are taking up most of his attention- it's the fact that he can feel every pulse he knew he had and a few that he didn't getting faster- _harder_ \- with every moment- the rush of restored life isn't fading but rising.

It's not anything of the usual lust either, not the obvious heat at the sight of a well-made backside or shapely lips, nor the occasional impulse to lose his mind in a soft and willing body- just that right at this moment there's too much relief and grief and love for the line between _him_ and _her_ to have any meaning, so it seems perfectly right to rub it out completely. And seeing that now that they've rolled over so that he's on top of her again, it does seem enough for now that now both of their whole worlds have been ripped down in steel and blood and reborn in sacred sunlight, and now that he's unshackled her from the magic that's filling him to the fingertips and almost ready to burst, that seems more married than mere laws could make anybody.

It was only when his left hand tried to caress her and there was a nasty tug on his shoulder and a clunking noise that a number of things occurred to Eugene.

"Um." He pulled back and got enough breath to say: "I'm chained to the stairs."

"Oh. Y-yes. Oh. So you are."

Then the second thing.

"Rapunzel, the chameleon's watching."

"Oh. So he is. But you got his species right this time."

"Of course I knew he's a chameleon. It's obvious."

What is also fast becoming obvious is that it's really amazing just how _withering_ a look a chameleon can give. (Does he know that? Does it even apply to lizards? Not that trying to remember if he's ever known anything about reptilian anatomy helps matters.)

He wonders if it's the fact of a new life, or because it's _her_ , or whether Flynn Rider even in his previous life would never have been able to do it with a chameleon watching. He may well never know. This smoulder is rapidly fizzling out.

She presses her lips under his chin this time, under the angle of his jaw, but he can't un-notice that he's cuffed to a wall, and while he's aware that some men like something like that (some women too, for that matter) it's never been his thing, even if it weren't in earnest. (Nor women in them, either. Cuffs and chains were kind of a work thing, really un-erotic.)

And that's when the next thing occurs to him.

"Rapunzel… where's the key?"

"I- oh…" Rapunzel turns over, and gets up with an unusual lack of grace, as if her springy limbs are not as attentive as usual- hands and knees to hands and feet, then standing, taking a faltering step and tripping over her own hair- something which, against all logic, she never did when it was attached to her.

She reaches up a shaky hand and touched the raggedy edges- it's strange how different she looks without it- smaller, and yet somehow far more like a woman than the girl she had been. She makes another sound, more like a laugh than a sob.

"Look, I'm sorry-"

"Don't be! I'm not sorry at all! Oh my- I can't believe how un-sorry I am- I think I'm a bit-" she giggles again- "light-headed…"

"Hey, watch we're you're walking! There's broken glass everywhere."

"Oh. So there is." Rapunzel turns her head to look around, and wobbles wildly before staggering to balance again. "Wow, what a mess."

"Nothing a quick straighten-up and sweep wouldn't solve. Come on. Come here." Eugene shuffles nearer the stairs, where the length of the chain let him stand. "Come to me. That's it." He waits until she's in his arms again before he ventures- "Rapunzel, the key…"

Now she's not as giddy, not as she says, and it's audible that she's realised what it means:

"I think Mother took it… but… then… Mother-' She looks towards the open window.

No, so he didn't imagine it.

"I mean I know now there are stairs- I can go down, I'm sure it will be in her pocket, but…"

"Yeah."

"I think she must be dead."

"Very."

"No, I mean, even without the fall."

"Maybe- but certainly with it." But the fall surely must have left parts of Mother not meant to see the light of day splashed across a large area of that pretty river valley.

They sit on the stairs for a while- in fact Rapunzel sits on his lap, and he folds his body around her as if he could wrap her up safe from every misery that might threaten her. It's only then that Pascal runs up his leg with his tail gripping a small key that does indeed turn out to be the right one.

She becomes as relaxed as if she were asleep, though he can still see her blinking, and she takes a moment to she scoop Pascal off her lap and drop him onto her collarbone.

However long it goes on for, it's not long enough. After a night pacing round and round a cell, there's no rush to go anywhere or do anything. Not even making love, now. She's lost enough for one day.

Anyway, now that he has his wife- even if he hasn't had chance to tell a priest to make a note of it yet- he'll have to sort things out to be safe and reliable for her- and he could start with finding that priest to make everything clear and certain and let her be able to say to the world that her honour was unblemished, whatever his state of tarnish might be.

And then what? The whole business of the last three days has left him somewhat bereft of jewels, or anything else for that matter but the clothes he's sitting in. The tower doesn't look a bad home but it doesn't seem wise to stay long- not now that the palace have found where it is…

…well, Maximus knows where it is… but Maximus helped him escape. So maybe his assets include one highly valuable cavalry horse- though Max probably isn't open to being owned as such. Assuming he's still standing round outside, anyway.

Other than that, it's some household movables and seventy feet of mundane hair.

Not a bad price on hair, even these days, especially a couple of days' ride away over the Lourisea border. Do they need a middleman, even? How long does it take to learn how to make wigs?

Rapunzel raises her head.

She looks into his eyes with enough mingled joy and loss to greet the angel she's been awaiting for too long. He knows he's no such thing. All he can think of is to fall back on routine.

"Hi. How ya doin' there?"

"Good. Quite good. You're quiet."

"I don't know what I'm meant to say. Your mother just died."

"Yes she did. But… I know it might be the wrong time, but I'd just come to realise that she wasn't actually a very nice person."

"Oh, you worked it out, did you? Well, I hope you feel a lot less bad about your trip now."

"Much less bad. In fact, there's something I should tell you. She wasn't my mother. I realised last night: I'm the lost princess."

"Sorry, Rapunzel, I'm still a little addled here. It sounded like you just said you were the lost princess."

"I did."

"Yes, I thought that was what it was."

The lost princess.

She's eighteen. Or rather, she was eighteen, yesterday. On the princess' birthday and yes, the princess would be about that age. Unfeasible amount of golden hair. Been locked away here since before she can remember.

Of course she _could_ be making a mistake.

Or it might be possible to convince her that she's made a mistake (she's trusted at least one liar all her life, after all.)

Alternatively, if they were married on the way back to the city- perhaps if things happened today that meant that they'd _have_ to be married- then whatever happened, he'd be her husband and nobody would have the right to part them.

Well, that would be the sort of thing Flynn Rider might have done.

Eugene sighed.

"I guess we have another road trip ahead of us, then. Is there anything you really want to take from here?"


	2. Awakening (again)

As Max turned out to be there to help, she took her paintbox, and her sketchbook, and at an afterthought the purple blanket from her bed. In the evening it seemed obvious- despite the warm night she couldn't settle, exposed without her hair until he rolled her up in it, and she giggled: "I'm a cocoon!"

Eugene was quite used to a bed of grass in summer, but he didn't sleep that night. She was safe in a good many ways in her cocoon- it was enough to lie there and watch until the sun woke her.

And that was the night that he'd spent with her.

Five days later, he's still picturing it- mostly revelling in the idea of how sweet it looked to sleep swaddled in her soft blanket, so secure, so loved. Presumably she's similarly asleep in smooth cool sheets right now, with her family nearby. Perhaps her mother is even watching as he did. Well, mostly as he did.

"Well I'm glad," he says to the world at large and the ceiling in particular. " 's'all good. No more hanging on, right? Whole kingdom in waiting forever, place was getting downright weird. Like the baby was deified, you know? And that's not good for them. She's human. Well, now she's human. All human. And you've got to be human, otherwise it's inhuman. It means man's inhumanity to man, that's human nature. Only she's a woman, and it was a woman. Er. Argh."

At some point, the yellowed ceiling of the tavern became hidden behind a _something_ of riveted iron. It seems maybe appropriate to yell, but his heart's not in it.

"Rider," the iron thing says in a muffled echo, "you've had enough."

"No, no, Attila, no, it's all okay. I'm celebrating. Got to do the celebrating. All the receptacle citzzzens are celebrating. 'S respecticle. Respectfuckall. Respetful. King and Queen were good to me. Letting me go my way on clean sheets. With a clean sheet. I owe it to them to celebrate. For the Princess. _The Princess!_ " Eugene sits up and fights his way to a table to find something to flourish in the obligatory toast. His hand finds a beaker, but somehow it lands on him.

He can see the horns on Attila's helmet drifting to and fro, which seems unkind in the circumstances.

"You should eat something, Rider."

"No more cake, Attila. No offense. Not even the special celebration cake. My stomach right now might insult that noble recipe."

"Well, that _would_ mean at least trial by combat. Purely for honour's sake, you understand."

"Yep. And I'm not going there. Don't want it on my clean sheet… keeping it clean… not that she's ever going to see my bedding- well, don't have my own bedding, just another thing to carry… clean sheets… nice and smooth- looked so _fluffy_ , like goose down… beautiful…"

He dreams of the lanterns floating over their boat, and the reflections in her eyes, and it's just when he realises that he's going to kiss her that there's breath on his face far hotter and in greater quantity than could possibly have come from Rapunzel.

When his eyelids unstick, the offending nostrils look like canon barrels, and they're black and fuzzy and familiar.

The nose pulls back, and he sees three large white palace horses standing over him.

Not three horses. Three _Maximuses_. And at the side of each one step forward quintuplet captains of the guard.

"There you are, Mr. Fitzwurzel. We've been looking for you for hours. The king wants you brought to the Tower with all haste."

Eugene puts an arm across his face. He's never actually dishonoured that name- or at least, never further dishonoured it- by being arrested under it before.

"What have I done _now_?"

"It turns out that the palace's business with you is not as finished with as we thought, Mr. Fitzwurzel. Kindly come along with me, sir."

"I'll do what I have to. I'll go along with what the king says, but give me a moment… I've just got to… to black out again…"

* * *

When he wakes up again, it's by the smart click of a white door in a white room opening to allow a tall young man in violet livery to approach the bed where it turns out he's lying in white, clean, cool sheets.

"Good morning, sir!"

"…?"

"Toast and coffee, sir. The square dish has butter in it, and the round ones in the bowl are preserves and honey."

"Wha… well this isn't the same as last time."

"No, sir, it wouldn't be."

"Last morning I spent in the tower I don't recall a choice of preserves and honey."

"The guards wouldn't do that, sir, no. I'm Johannes, the footman."

"I'm F- no, actually, I'm Eugene."

"But of course, sir." Johannes, now at the side of the room, has opened a large cupboard and is busying himself with a huge steaming jug.

"Have you got my clothes, Johannes?"

"Kobi will bring them soon, sir."

"What am I wearing now?"

"Your nightshirt, sir."

"I don't own a nightshirt. If I don't sleep wearing everything I have it might not be there when I wake up."

"You do now, sir. I don't expect the king wants it back. I put you in it last night, sir."

"You did?"

"Yes sir. When they brought you in rather tired and emotional last night I woke you up to give you willowfine and two pints of water and put you to bed."

"Well that explains- do you have to do that? I'm getting really _uncomfortable_ here. Is there a honey bucket handy?"

Johannes paused in the middle of pouring out hot water.

"There's a close-stool behind the screen in the corner, sir."

"Oh thank gods."

A few seconds later Eugene leaned out from behind the screen.

"Do you have to hang around there?"

"Just getting the shaving things ready, sir."

"Well go and polish somewhere else, will you? I'm not used to having grown men hanging around to look after me."

"Very good sir."

When Eugene emerges slightly happier from behind the screens, it takes him a moment to realise that it wasn't Johannes but a man groomed to look almost identical to him laying out clothes on the bed.

"Kobi?"

"Yes sir, good morning."

"And these are…"

"Your clothes, sir."

"Um, no, don't think so."

"They are for you, sir."

"Seriously- my shirt isn't new like this, believe me, the cuffs went months ago- will you look at this coat- this- wow- this is silk brocade, I know mine's roughly the same cut but-"

"I assure you they are sir, they arrived this morning. No new boots yet, though, the boy's just cleaning your old ones…"

"I think I'd like to sit down."

"Very good, Mr. Fixubert. Would you like me to shave you sir?"

"What? No! No, sorry. Thanks all the same."

"Very good sir."

"Please stop saying that."

And that's the white door opens again, and a voice with the depth of absolute unthinking assurance says:

"Are you two finished with him yet?"

"Not quite, sire."

"Right, that's enough. I'm coming in."

And that's when it all gets even more unexpected.

Eugene had seen King Leopold of Corona a few days ago, of course, but that was in the company of Rapunzel and under the circumstances it didn't quite register. He realises now that, thanks to Rapunzel's presence, he hadn't actually seen the _King_ that day.

It also becomes clear that the nightshirt was too short to sit like this.

"I think I'd like to stand up again."

"Oh, do liven up, Fitzblanket or whatever your name is. You are sober now, aren't you?"

"Right now? Extremely."

"Good. Now get washed and dressed, try to look like you weren't found under a tavern table at four o'clock this morning. You're going on a walkabout with my daughter at one this afternoon."

"…with Rapunzel?"

"In three hours."

"…Rapunzel, I'll see her again, in three hours?"

"One and a half, if you can do it."

"So I'm not actually under arrest then?"

"Are you sure you're not still tired and emotional? Have you eaten anything?"

"Your boys brought me toast. With a choice of preserves and honey."

"Preserves and honey, indeed, that's my wife's doing. Kobi, bring bacon and eggs up here."

"Yes sire."

"And get Johannes to give him a shave."

"Nobody is giving me a shave!"

"Oh aren't they?"

"Um. Look, I don't like anyone I don't know holding a blade near my throat. In fact I don't know anyone I _would_ feel comfortable if they were holding a blade to my throat."

"Fair enough. I'm not one to comment. I'm sure you can dress yourself. See you at twelve. Be presentable."

"But… wait… Why am I going out walking with the Princess? I mean I know I've been pardoned, but…"

The king turned back from the doorway.

"Well, you did bring her home from captivity. You are responsible for her being here. That's worth our friendship at least- how close a friendship, well, that rather depends on _you_ from now on. In any case… after all she's been through I couldn't deprive my daughter of what makes her happy. At least, not the dearest friend she's ever had."

"So you'll be keeping Pascal the chameleon, then."

"Don't push your luck, Eugene. At least _he_ hasn't spent half the week inviting comparison with a newt. Still, it's not that the chameleon's not charming, but you know. Can't even consider allowing the princess to court a lizard."

"…I'm sorry, what?"

The king has almost turned away, so it's only a slight movement of the beard that indicates his smile.

"Oh, nothing. You must still be light-headed. See you later."

* * *

When he opens yet another white-painted door- a pair this time- it's her mother who's sitting at a table facing him, and looks up and smiles much as she did before.

"There you are," says the queen.

The high-backed chair facing away from him scrapes back, and he gets a brief blurred impression of big green eyes and a smile and honeyed skin and pink before Rapunzel hits him solidly in the chest, and clings to him like ivy, meaning that it's his hands that examine her change of costume before his eyes do- he can tell that no longer does she look like a travelling actress- the silk is one of those teasing, contradictory fabrics only possible at huge expense- firm like frosted snow, but soft as clouds and smooth as water.

He can see the queen still watching over Rapunzel's shoulder, still smiling but with raised eyebrows now, and waiting, gleaming, on the table is that damn oversized tiara that got him into all this in the first place. He doesn't have much time to glare at it before Rapunzel, with all her alarming wiry strength, has managed to pull herself up until she's seated in his arms, and she pushes her hand over his forehead in a gesture that seems part affectionate and partly an examination.

"Where have you been?" she demanded, "and what did you think you were doing yesterday?"

The trouble with all Rapunzel's unthinking sincerity is that the longer he spends around it the worse Eugene is at finding anything to say but the unadorned truth.

"I thought I'd never see you again."

For a moment she looks shocked- then it passes, and she rolls her eyes.

"Silly man," she says, "I would never allow that to happen. Now we're going out to meet people in the square, and I want you to come with us. It would be nice to have you with me." She seems to catch up with what she's saying, and something breaks through, something that sounds like someone taking a step from the familiar and certain into the great unknown gulf of a new and astonishingly deep tenderness: "More than nice. I want you to be there with me."

"I'm here, princess. Always."

And then the queen said:

"Ah…"

"Yes, Mama?"

"I hope you're not planning to climb up Eugene in public, yet? Not before it's public knowledge that you're courting?"

"No, Mama, I won't climb up him again. I promise!"

Well, that promise was oddly specific. Eugene hoped that the public was ready for both of them.


End file.
